Last Resort

by Alison Lurie

  This conviction, unfortunately, had come between Jenny and many women who might have remained or become her close friends. But when they cooled toward her, or failed to warm, Jenny forgave them. They didn’t understand; they were married to ordinary replaceable men, men whose jobs could be done by someone else if necessary.

  “Anyways, it was a great dinner.” Tiff resumed, perhaps registering Jenny’s silence, and backtracking. “And you were so sweet to that old guy who spilled his wine on the sofa.”

  “Oh, that was nothing. Wine doesn’t stain if you put enough salt on it right away.”

  “Yeah, really? I never knew that. But you were awfully nice about it anyhow. I wish I could be like that, but I get so goddamned sick of the wrinklies sometimes. Oh hell, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean your husband. But all these boring old writers Gerry knows that are always hanging around, and either they act like I’m not there, or they try to come on to me in this kind of slow, creepy way. Sometimes I feel like I’m going out of my mind. I mean, I guess you must run into the same thing, right?”

  “Well, sometimes,” Jenny admitted reluctantly. In fact, only last night, when she was serving up the cheesecake, an elderly art critic named Garrett Jones had come into the kitchen, praised her cooking, put his arm round her in a too-friendly way, and given her a sloppy kiss. She hadn’t protested, because Garrett had obviously had a lot to drink and was only the Fosters’ temporary house guest; but she hoped she would never meet him again.

  “And the women are worse. They act friendly, but mostly they’re just interested in Gerry. Half of them, the old ones, resent me because I’m not Cynthia—you know, his ex-wife. And the others resent me because I keep them from cuddling up to him. Well, I bet it’s the same with you.”

  “No, not exactly,” Jenny said, irritated by this caricature of her own recent thoughts. She lowered another stack of dirty pots and pans into the sink.

  “And then when I tell Gerry how it is, he says I’m oversensitive, or I’m being paranoid. Sometimes I think he’s getting to be like all the other old farts.”

  “Really,” Jenny said, this time allowing a definite chill to enter her voice. She turned on the water again.

  “I don’t hafta put up with that, I told him. I don’t hafta hang around if he isn’t ever really there for me, right?”

  “I suppose not,” Jenny said. She opened the faucet further, causing some of the warm dirty water in the sink to splash onto her white sundress.

  “Well, anyhow,” Tiff said in a weak voice over the noise of water drumming on aluminum. “I guess I better be getting back. I expect I’ll see you around.”

  “Yes,” Jenny admitted without enthusiasm. “I expect you will.”

  When he reached the corner of Reynolds Street, Wilkie Walker turned for a last long look at the house. The structure was nothing to him—a vacation rental, anonymously Floridian, surrounded by a white stucco wall cluttered with thorny purple bougainvillea. But behind that wall were the two things he cared most about in the world: his book and his wife.

  He had made the right decision about the manuscript, Wilkie told himself as he stood on the weed-cracked sidewalk under a coconut palm. He had wavered for a while last week after reading a deeply infuriating letter requesting—in fact, ordering—him to vacate his emeritus-professor office at Convers for six months so that the building could be enlarged to accommodate a computing center. For several days he had played with the idea of revenging himself by accusing the author of this letter—not by name, but so that everyone at the university would recognize him—of the death of the Copper Beech. Slowly and fatally, its root system would be killed by the construction of some such ugly nonsense.

  But in the end Wilkie had dismissed this idea. He must think of the survivors: his family, his friends, his critics, and his readers. Some, no doubt, would make the connection between himself and the Copper Beech. If he portrayed it as destroyed by human stupidity, they might think that Wilkie Walker believed that he too had been driven to his death by hostile and ignorant persons. This was not only untrue, it would make him seem weak, perhaps even somewhat paranoid.

  Whereas if the Copper Beech were toppled in a great storm, all anyone might suspect was that Wilkie was gifted with precognition, since trees do not commit suicide. Today, therefore, he had moved the final version of this ending into a central position on his desk with the finished manuscript, and put the others away. As he did so he felt some regret at having to discard the other two versions, both of which contained excellent passages—some of the best he had ever written, in fact. But he knew he had made the right choice.

  About Jenny he was less easy. He had planned to make their last days together memorable and intimate, to make her happy in every way—even agreeing to the dinner party she’d proposed to give. But he had had to forgo the long, intimate, relaxed conversations he had imagined their having here in Key West. The trouble was that whenever they were alone together Wilkie was assailed by the impulse to hint at some of what was on his mind. There was even the danger that he might suddenly weaken and tell her everything, as he had more or less done for so many years. At the same time he had become aware of an irrational anger at Jenny because she didn’t know what was on his mind—irrational, because he had done all he could to prevent her knowing.

  And since he had been successful, and Jenny didn’t know what was on his mind—didn’t even guess—she did things that irritated him. She kept trying to direct his attention to meaningless national and local events, or to supposedly humorous newspaper stories and cartoons. She proposed social and cultural events, and wanted him to speak to his children on the phone. Just yesterday she had been pestering him to go with her to some film, reading the reviews out loud and telling him that some new friend of hers said it was wonderful. For a moment Wilkie had felt almost hostile to his wife. When he looked at her across the breakfast table she no longer resembled a transfigured human version of a salt marsh mouse. Instead she reminded him of another creature far from the threat of extinction, rather increasing in numbers every year: Sorex arareus, the common or garden shrew, with its shrill little twittering voice.

  But that was only the impression of a moment. It had been deeply painful today to leave Jenny without a sign, and in his mind he had tried out many last speeches: casual phrases that after the fact would reverberate with meaning. In the end he had resisted the impulse, fearing he might break down, and only called out “I’m going for my swim now.” “See you soon, then,” Jenny had called back, hardly glancing round; and he had replied, choking up, “Right.”

  His last words—his last word—to Jenny had been a lie. But a necessary one. What would happen now must seem a tragic accident. Why no, Wilkie Walker wasn’t depressed, everyone must say: he was full of energy and plans for the future. Only the night before—

  Yesterday he had planned to kiss Jenny casually yet fondly as he passed on his way to the beach, perhaps to compliment her intimately on the dinner party and what he had intended to follow it. That was what hurt, what rankled now more than the sharp occasional pain in his lower bowel. Not only his final words to his wife, but their final significant encounter had been false and meaningless. Last night, their last night together, he had planned to make love to Jenny. He had tried, strained, willed it with all his force—but all for nothing; worse than nothing.

  “Darling, it doesn’t matter. Really, it was lovely,” Jenny had said when, muttering an angry apology, he had lain slack in her arms at last, a heavy, sweaty burden of inert bone and muscle and flesh. Wilkie discounted these words. Of course she would say that, out of politeness, out of love. Silently he had turned away from her and pretended to sleep.

  In less than an hour he would forget all this, forever; but Jenny would not forget. That clumsy, humiliating failure would always be her last intimate memory of him.

  He could wait a few days, try to make love again—earlier in the evening, and sober. But suppose there was another failure? Also, today would be
his last chance at the ocean for a while. According to the radio a massive cold front was moving in; temperatures would fall into the fifties tonight, and heavy rain was expected. If he went swimming tomorrow under such conditions he would be thought deranged.

  Wilkie glanced again at the house where Jenny sat reading a book, unaware of what was to come. Besides great shock and loss, she would have many duties. For instance, she would have to cancel all the articles, lectures, and conferences that would be the proof of Wilkie’s intention to live on. Fortunately, she had now made a friend in Key West, some woman who had been a therapist in Brooklyn and now ran a guest house here. Neither of these attributes recommended her to Wilkie Walker, but they had advantages. This Lou? Lil?—something like that—presumably knew the local scene, and also had professional training in dealing with crisis and grief.

  “Hi there! Wilkie!”

  Dimly, he became aware that someone was shouting his name. As he turned, the waving figure far down the street was recognizable as Gerry Grass, who was occupying an apartment in their compound and had come to dinner last night. Wilkie’s first thought was that he was being recalled to some emergency. But as Gerry galloped nearer it became clear that he was grinning, wearing Hawaiian-print swim trunks and carrying a towel—in fact, that he intended to accompany Wilkie to the beach.

  Wilkie’s first impulse was to turn and run. He had over two blocks’ lead, and could reach the ocean well before Gerry. But how would such a flight sound when it was reported to Jenny, and to the police? He felt a rush of rage and bitterness. Until now he had had nothing against Gerry, whom he had met before on many public occasions. He had agreed to the inclusion of him and his current bimbo in the dinner party—the more witnesses to his non-suicidal condition, the better, he had thought.

  “Going swimming?” Gerry inquired, panting up to him.

  Wilkie agreed grudgingly that he was; to deny it and turn back would seem deeply peculiar. It occurred to him that in unconventionally seeking freedom from a painful and constraining future, one had to become more conventional than ever. Acts that might pass without comment if you continued to live became weighted with significance when they preceded your death.

  Wearily, he began to stride down Reynolds Street toward the sea. Gerry loped alongside, making noises with his mouth. In the past Wilkie had regarded Gerry as a man of fair intelligence and sound views. Gerry had reviewed two of his books enthusiastically, and Wilkie had more than once quoted from Gerry’s impassioned nature poems in his writing.

  But since he had left his agreeable wife (a long-standing fan of Wilkie’s) and moved to Southern California several years ago, Gerry seemed to have become something of a New Age ninny. Though Wilkie knew for a fact that he was pushing sixty, last night he had spoken of himself as “middle-aged,” so as to seem to belong to the majority, just as some rich people speak of themselves as “middle-class.”

  “You swim every day? That’s great,” Gerry told him. “You know, I met a really interesting guy in L.A. last month who recommends it. He sees swimming as a form of active meditation; says it helps you to clear your mind and tune into natural rhythms.”

  Cretin, Wilkie thought, glancing sideways at Gerry. Previously, he had seemed a normal specimen of Homo sapiens. Now his athletic handsomeness suggested atavism. Was there not a tinge of the anthropoid ape in Gerry’s sloping shoulders, slightly prognathous jaw, and the dusting of gray-peppered curly hair on the rims of his ears?

  “Hey, that’s an unusual tree—it has two different kinds of flowers,” Gerry remarked, stopping to drag down a branch. “What’s its name?”

  “Hibiscus tiliaceus. Mahoe, they call it here,” Wilkie replied automatically, noting the low, apelike placement of the thumb on Gerry’s hand. Genetic, or a throwback? “The flowers come in yellow, then turn dark red.”

  The serious problem was, how to elude Gerry once they got into the water. If he could put some distance between them fast enough, maybe he could still carry out his plan. Gerry was ten or twelve years younger; on the other hand, there was a stringy look to him; he didn’t have the solid build and smooth muscles of a swimmer.

  As they came in sight of the beach, Gerry shifted topics and began to complain of his lecture agent. The guy wasn’t getting him interesting jobs anymore, and the fees had fallen. Maybe he needed to change agents. Who handled Wilkie? he wanted to know, and would he recommend this person?

  “Well, that depends,” Wilkie replied grudgingly, striding across the street. “We’ll have to talk about it.” You poor sucker, he thought. You’re on your way down too. The world is getting tired of you, only you don’t know it yet.

  The sun was low in a pink sky as they reached the pier, and there was the usual complement of sunset watchers. Followed by Gerry, he descended the slippery wooden steps, plunged into the cool, foamy, bulging and retreating sea, and struck out for the horizon.

  But though Wilkie put forth his best effort, his unwanted companion kept alongside with an awkward, splashy crawl. The problem was, he realized, swallowing a mouthful of thick briny water, that though he’d swum almost every day for weeks, he’d never gone very far. He had deliberately avoided increasing his speed and distance, realizing that the greater his endurance, the longer the whole thing would take, the more chance there would be of an unwanted rescue.

  “Great, isn’t it?” Gerry shouted.

  Wilkie did not reply; it had become clear that if he showed any sign of drowning, Gerry would be close enough to officiously try to save him. For the first time in his life he felt the temptation to commit a capital crime other than suicide. Maybe I could take him with me, he thought. We’re far enough out now; there won’t be any witnesses. A quick choke hold from behind, and if I’m lucky we’ll both go under. Let him find that unity with nature he was gabbling about last night.

  A cold surge of excitement lifted Wilkie higher than the oncoming wave, then dropped him. The plan was too risky. If it failed, Jenny might be faced not with a tragic accident, but with a half-drowned husband accused of attempted murder.

  Gerry, splashing onward, showed no strain, but soon Wilkie’s breath was coming short; the waves felt icy as they slapped his head and arms. If he didn’t turn back now, he could be in trouble. He might even, ignominiously, find himself actually being rescued by this fuzzy-minded anthropoid ape.

  6

  AT THE SO-CALLED KEY West International Airport, on a cool, windy February evening, Perry Jackson (known locally as Jacko) was waiting for his mother’s plane. The shabby lime-green cinder-block structure, with its airline and car-rental counters and racks of tourist brochures, was crowded. Beside the travelers, and people meeting them or seeing them off, there were taxi and van drivers, airline and car-rental and coffee-shop and gift-shop and janitorial employees. There were also a number of unemployed and unemployable persons just hanging out.

  Except for the passengers, everyone was dressed casually; most in shorts or jeans and T-shirts. The T-shirts of the natives tended to recommend various off-island commercial products. Several departing tourists, on the other hand, wore T-shirts advertising local businesses or promoting Key West as a vacation spot (New Moon Saloon, Waterfront Market, Island Paradise, etc.).

  Jacko, in a faded red T-shirt with the logo of a well-known plant food, leaned against the wall by Gate 2, which was in fact the only gate at the little airport. He was chatting with two acquaintances and looking casually beautiful but preoccupied. Three days ago he had been discharged from the Key West hospital after a short but intensely unpleasant episode of viral pneumonia. Antibiotics had wiped it away in forty-eight hours, but though he felt okay physically, his mind was troubled. This virus, he suspected—no, knew—was the first signal from the other and more fatal virus he carried. A signal from disease, from death. He pictured a small, very ugly man all in black, his pale face marked with purple splotches, getting off a black plane and walking toward him, through Gate 2.

  Trying not to think of this, Jacko turned his
attention to an acquaintance whose problem was snails in his ferns.

  “Beer,” he advised when the guy paused for breath. “You put out saucers of beer at night, and they crawl in and get drunk and drown. Blissfully.”

  “Aw, you’re kidding me.”

  Jacko shook his head. For a bad moment, he visualized the viruses in his bloodstream as sluggish, half-drunk snails.

  “What kind of beer?” Jacko’s friend raised his voice to compete with a loudspeaker announcing the arrival of Jacko’s mother’s flight.

  “It doesn’t matter. Van thinks they like Miller’s best, but mine’ll drink anything. Hey, I gotta go. See you later.”

  As the passengers filed in they could be sorted into two distinct species. A few were local residents who had been away briefly: they were relaxed and healthy looking, lightly burdened with luggage and lightly dressed for Key West’s perpetual summer. The rest were tourists from the north, pale and weakened by months of cold and darkness and hours of air travel. They were weighed down with carry-on bags, and struggling under layers of heavy dark coats and jackets and sweaters and scarves. Already, in the unaccustomed heat, some were beginning to sweat and look faint. They reminded Jacko of the homeless, hopeless people he had seen in northern cities, dragging or pushing their possessions and wearing their entire wardrobes.

  Smiling, he stepped forward to embrace one of these sad souls: a small, pretty but faded woman in her early sixties, with curly gray hair and a sweet, anxious expression.

  “Mumsie! You made it.” In a traditional gesture, Jacko picked her up and swung her round—as he had first done, triumphantly, on his thirteenth birthday, when at last he was taller than his mother.